Red Eagles: Americas Secret MiGs
(General Aviation) by Steve Davies
An Incredibly Thorough And Overall Enjoyable Unit History
From the late 1960s until the end of the Cold War, the United States Air
Force acquired and flew Russian-made MiG jets, culminating in a secret
squadron dedicated to exposing American fighter pilots to enemy
technology and tactics.
Red Eagles tells the story of this squadron from the first tests of MiGs
following the Vietnam War when the USAF had been woefully under-
prepared in aerial combat. These initial flights would develop into the black
or classified program known internally as Constant Peg.

At a secret air base in Nevada, ace American fighter pilots were presented
with a range of differnet MiG jets with a simple remit: to expose the threat
to as many of their brethern as possible. Maintaining and flying these
assets without without spare parts or manuals was an almost impossible
task, putting those flying the MiGs in mortal danger on every flight.
Despite these challenges, in all more than 5,900 American aircrews would
train against Americas secret MiGs, giving them the eskills they needed to
face the enemy in real combat situations.
For the first time, this book tells the story of Constant Peg and the 4477th
Red Eagles Squadron in the words of the men who made it possible.
Personal Review: Red Eagles: Americas Secret MiGs (General
Aviation) by Steve Davies
Red Eagles is largely a unit history of the 4477th TES (originally TEF,
officially known as the "Red Eagles") that was based at the Tonopah Test
Range in Nevada and which flew three types of MiG's to train American
fighter aircrew against them, the MiG-17, -21 and -23, over a period of
nearly twenty years. This history focuses primarily on the pilots and other
officers who developed this unit and their flying exploits over the course of
its life. As such has as its strongest flavor a stream of personal histories,
and the characters, antics and interplay of the aircrew assigned to the unit
ranging from hilarious to quirky to autocratic. But the unifying thread is the
American efforts at exploiting captured, borrowed, and bought MiG's and
as such the book also touches, sometimes briefly and sometimes more
generously, on the squadron's maintenance efforts, how the MiG's were
brought to America or how American pilots managed to fly foreign MiG's in
their host countries, the corollary exploits of the "Red Hats" at Groom Lake
-which was the equivalent of a test squadron vice the training squadron
that the 4477th became and which explored a larger variety of Soviet
designed aircraft-, and the technical details of the aircraft.
Suffering a rude awakening from its combat experience in F-4's and
F-105's against North Vietnamese MiG-17's and -21's in the Vietnam War,
the USAF was handed a golden opportunity to recover its aerial fighting
prowess when Israel offered it the temporary use of several MiG's flown to
her by pilots defecting from several other middle eastern countries. This
was the simmering catalyst of what eventually grew into a much larger (but
almost always infused with a rag-tag and secretive character as a result of
being an extremely black program half dependent on chance for its
continued operation) effort to acquire soviet aircraft from foreign countries
for exploitation (notably Indonesia and Egypt). As such the Red Eagles
continually grew from a ramshackle flight with a small handful of aircraft at
a remote, dusty and nearly forgotten base to a fully professional, integrated

Air Force squadron with a relatively large number of MiG's. On this
foundation they could offer more consistent and reliable training exposures
to Air Force units at Nellis, particularly during Red Flag, Navy units from
TOP GUN at Miramar or undergoing work-ups at NAS Fallon, and USMC
units from El Toro. The value of this training to US pilots, consisting of
actual exposure to the type of aircraft they could expect to encounter in
hostile situations and flying the spectrum from standard enemy tactics to
anything goes, full out dogfighting, was obviously tremendous. The Red
Eagles truly deserve many of the laurels for later American aerial victories
against Libya and Iraq, and the story of the squadron is a great one well
told by Davies.
The history of the unit is pretty captivating and exciting, with many
fascinating details, particularly how the MiG's were acquired and
maintained, the experiences the pilots had learning to fly them, and the
results of match-ups between the best of what the Soviets built and the
primary American fighters of the day. As a complete history it of course
also includes the unfortunate deaths of several people involved in the
squadron and the poignant effects these deaths had on the deceased's
families, made worst by the fact that the details and true story of how they
died and why could not be revealed even to loved ones until sometimes
decades after the fact. The in depth thoroughness of this book is truly
impressive though, and a great credit to its author who clearly spent a very
long time investigating this recently declassified subject.
While the 80% of the book is the personal exploits of the pilots involved in
the program and thus make this a great read for people who have served
in military aviation, the technical and operational details of the MiG's
themselves, although sometimes disappointingly scant, will also prove
fascinating to those interested in aerospace engineering and aircraft
design. The Russian philosophy of aircraft design was decidedly more
rugged, reliable, and less complex than the American, but delivered mixed
results. All of the Russian aircraft suffered from extremely poor range, and
very poor cockpit design which hampered everything from visibility to
ergonomic efficiency of use, but they also showed some surprising levels
of performance and operability. The MiG-17 truly was an outstanding low
speed dogfighter, and the MiG-21, in spite of its high energy bleed rate
from its delta wing and supersonic dash optimized design, also held up
admirably in the dogfight. The MiG-23 on the other hand was a dud as an
individual aircraft, more dangerous to its own pilot and a nightmare to fly
due to its poor handling characteristics. While it was practically useless in
a dogfight it did deliver nearly stunning acceleration and high speed. Used
with cunning tactics even this "turkey" could prove deadly, making dash
intercepts against American AWACS (it was even able to out accelerate
the F-15), chasing down F-111's, and being used either as a lure for more
nimble MiG-21's or used to make lightning fast swiping runs against
American fighters lured by the slower -17's and -21's.

There is a lot of great information in this book about a truly amazing
chapter in aviation history, and it is well told in a very personal and
humanizing manner. Definitely recommended!
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